


dancing shadows

by atlas_oulast



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Child Abuse, Coping, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 16:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19834552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_oulast/pseuds/atlas_oulast
Summary: But he loved him, he’d never more sure of anything in his goddamned life.He was going to love Jeremy Heere for the rest of time, and that was the end of that.Written for the Be More Chill Reverse Bang.





	dancing shadows

**Author's Note:**

> written for @adrogans-avis for the bmc reverse big bang . check out their piece that this is based off of!  
> https://adrogans-avis.tumblr.com/post/186319350869/httpsopenspotifycomplaylist1ms3qlxtxzi5uvrdt 
> 
> tws for child abuse, ptsd, self harm, suicide, and toxic masculinity.

Jeremy and Rich were laying in the bed of Rich’s pickup truck, a thin blanket spread over it, staring up at the stars together.

There was supposed to be a meteor shower today, however it was already eleven PM and they hadn’t had any luck in spotting them.

It was a clear night, and ever without shooting stars, the regular stars were clear, bright, and beautiful.

They laid there together in silence, staring up at the stars. The only sounds were the sound of their slow breaths, in, out, in, out, the distant sound of cars, far away and yet too close, and the gentle sound of the breeze rustling through the leaves and rushing past them.

Nothing needed to be said. Rich and Jeremy were laying there together, soaking up each other’s body heat on the cool summer night, finding comfort in human contact, especially with that other person.

Nothing needed to be said, nobody had to move or fidget, they could just lay here and forget all the pain they’d been through.

Eventually, Jeremy felt the last remaining knots of tension fade from Rich’s body against him, and his breathing even out. He knew he should probably wake them up so they could go home, and not risk getting kidnapped by someone else on this dirt road in nowhere New Jersey, but he was tired too, and didn’t want to ruin the perfectness of this moment.

Few things were perfect in this world. Pretty much everything was complicated and grey, nothing pure white, nothing quite pure black.

But there was something about this moment, of laying in the bed of your boyfriend’s truck and stargazing, not seeing the shooting stars that NASA had promised, but studying each and every star as the other person pressed into you, and eventually fell asleep.

But eleven PM turned to twelve PM, and Rich didn’t wake up or anything, so Jeremy held himself up over him, one arm on either side of Rich, as if he was doing a push up but with his elbows locked, and picked up one hand to gently shake Rich awake.

”Hi,” Jeremy said softly from above him, lips curling into a small smile in the dim starlight.

”Hi... did I fall asleep?” 

Jeremy took one hand and began tracing patterns in the freckles on Rich’s left cheek. “Yeah. Wanna go home?”

”Yeah.”

The half hour drive home, in the dead of night, was nice. Music quietly played from the radio, some indie station, and nothing needed to be said. The hum of the engine and the feeling of the wheels moving under them was soothing, the soft music, the gentle blow of the air conditioner.

Rich drove, practiced and calm. Where Jeremy had once feared his driving, he now felt no alarm, knowing that Rich was driving safely even at the late-ass hour.

* * *

They were snuggled together on Jeremy’s couch, sharing a blanket, watching a movie. They’d gotten bored with Star Wars and had surfed through the selection, stumbling upon a movie with Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin, about a girl who’s dad was a mortician and her mother had died giving birth to her. They were glad they’d stumbled upon this movie, because it was _amazing_ , not so glad because it was sad as _hell_.

They were crying together when Thomas died, and crying harder together at Thomas’ funeral. Rich could sympathise with Vada, remembering when he was eight, his mom had just died, and he just curled up on top of the covers on his bed and laid there crying for days. The one person in the world who’d cared about him was gone.

”Are you okay, Rich?” Jeremy asked, pausing the movie. He then realised that he’d been crying _way_ too hard, concerningly hard. “This movie is sad, but not... not that sad.”

”Just... I know how Vada feels. After my mom died... after seeing her like that...”

”You... you saw her die?” Jeremy took Rich’s hands in his, thumbs smoothing over the backs of his hands.

”Yep. She took Lucas and I out on a walk, we crossed a highway bridge with a sidewalk on it, then she kissed us both, told us to be good, and walked in front of a car.”

Rich’s shoulders and breath both hitched, and Jeremy’s hands grew tighter, his boyfriend’s face one of obvious horror.

”I can’t even imagine how awful that must’ve been, Rich... oh my god.”

”It’s whatever... let’s finish this movie,” Rich said, wiping his eyes. Sure, he knew it was okay to be vulnerable, his dad couldn’t hurt him anymore, the Squip couldn’t hurt him anymore.

But the habit, the fear, of being vulnerable, still lingered, and it always would. And he _hated_ it, hated it with a steadily burning passion.

* * *

It was the first day of school for Rich after the Squip. He’d gone home, gotten thoroughly knocked around, even though he’d _just_ gotten that full body cast off, and he wanted to scream and cry.

But boys don’t cry, boys don’t cry. If he cried his dad would just hurt him more.

He had always lived in fear, tiptoeing on already cracked eggshells around his dad. When his mom had died, Lucas hadn’t taken the majority of the rage that his dad had exacted on their mom. 

No, now that she was gone, that rage went to small eight year old Rich, who began to understand that a black eye was really purple, most of the time, and that it doesn’t matter if bruises fade, because they’re still there, forever ingrained in skin and memory, and new bruises would occupy the vacant spot soon enough.

To make matters worse, the Squip’s voice still lingered. It’d started in the hospital, after he’d suddenly experienced stabbing, paralysing pain, hot white light against his eyes, scrunched closed, hearing his own screams of agony, and nobody being there to tell him what was going on, what had happened, if he was dying.

He’d later found out from the antisocial headphones kid in the red hoodie, when he came to visit Jeremy (not him) that the Squips had been deactivated. Until then, he’d been lying there, scared and small, expecting to hear it’s voice and it never coming, but also actually coming, but he knew it was his own voice saying these things, whispering how _pathetic_ he was, how _idiotic_ he was, how he’d _never_ _escape_. He laid there, hyperventilating, in utter terror of when it’d come back for real.

So why, when Michael told him that, did those voices not disappear, but only get stronger and stronger?

It was at school when he realised that he was a fucking mess. He hadn’t brushed his hair or teeth since he’d gotten out of the hospital, he was wearing stained jeans and a pajama shirt, an old, discarded undershirt of his father’s, and no shoes.

”...Rich? Are you okay?” A small, scared, hesitant voice had asked.

He’d looked, and there was Jeremy, timid, holding his hands in an angle that indicated that he was ready to block any punches that Rich might throw at him.

”...Yeah... yeah, I’m fine,” Rich said, hating how his voice shook, sounded weak and vulnerable. Boys don’t cry, boys don’t cry.

”You... you look like a mess, Rich. Damn.”

”It’s the newest fashion, Heere, why can’t you tell?” Rich said, trying desperately to isolate, shut out some of that scared small child sound out of his voice. 

It didn’t work very well.

”You’re used to the Squip dressing you, huh?”

The Squip had told him what to wear every single day for two years, and Rich had grown to rely on it, he realised. That’s why his breath smelled like shit, because nobody had told him to brush his teeth. It’s why his hair was a rat’s nest, why he was wearing ketchup and dirt stained jeans, a shirt entirely too large for him, why he could feel the grimy, shining linoleum floor underneath his feet.

”...Yeah.”

”Want some help?”

What the fuck? This was the boy he’d bullied for over a year, the boy he’d punched, shoved, and mocked, countless times. 

The boy he’d marketed the Squip to, which could’ve ended all of human civilisation.

The boy who was doubtlessly experiencing the same agony inside that he currently was.

So why the fuck was he was offering to help _him_?

Still... his body warned he might scream if he turned Jeremy down. He needed help so so fucking bad, but at the same time, his guilt roared and raged. He knew what Jeremy was likely experiencing, he could see the dark circles under his eyes, likely from nightmares, whispered strings of hurtful words tying and untying him all night long...

Guilt and his desperation for help, any help, crashed into each other like two tsunamis, warring fiercely with each other, and then Rich realised that he couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t fucking breathe, he was gasping for air and coming up with just thin rushes of air, and his knees gave in and the pain from the collapse radiated and the waves were crashing into each other, again and again and again, and he couldn’t escape, he couldn’t escape he was _dying_ , he was dying-

“Rich. Rich, you gotta focus on your breathing. In and out, in and out, you’ve got this.”

He didn’t got this, he couldn’t fucking breathe

_Boys don’t cry, boys don’t cry, boys don’t cry_

He was going to die here, alone and afraid and broken, so goddamn broken, and nobody would remember him-

Rich just barely registered Jeremy grabbing his hands and pressing them to Jeremy’s own stomach. He felt it rise and fall steadily, slowly, calmly, and god, wouldn’t it be nice to breathe like that, to be okay and calm...

”Breathe like me. Slow, deep, in and out, in and out. Focus on it, Rich.”

He focused on the movements of Jeremy’s stomach, rising, falling, rising falling, and felt himself slowly begin to match those movements, the maelstrom of emotions slowly calming in his soul.

It could’ve been hours, or just a few minutes, when Rich came back to reality, processed the fact that Jeremy’s hands were pressing his to his stomach, they were rising and falling and rising and falling.

”Feel any better, Rich?” Jeremy asked. Gentle. Kind. Soft.

Rich just nodded, his head feeling like lead. He knew he should probably move, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Every last bit of him was utterly exhausted.

”Have you gotten panic attacks before?” Jeremy asked next.

”...What’s a panic attack?”

Jeremy looked just as confused as Rich probably looked.

”That was definitely a panic attack, Rich... you’ve never gotten them before?”

Rich searched his memory, for any incident of loosing the ability to breathe, thinking he was dying, and came up with absolutely nothing.

”I don’t think so? No.”

”Oh... I’ve been getting them since third grade, so..” Jeremy fidgeted a bit, awkwardly. 

“...Oh.” Dear Lord, an eight year old, experiencing what he’d just been through... it was bad enough as a sixteen year old, but half that... holy _shit_ , that must’ve sucked some serious fucking ass.

He said that part, and Jeremy just nodded.

”Yeah, it sucks. So... do you wanna talk about it? I understand if you don’t want to, of course-“

”Just... I feel guilty for making you get the Squip... I think I might have some sort of PSTD...”

Jeremy nodded in understanding. “The voices..?”

”...Guess we at least have something to bro bond over... that and shitty dads, I guess.” 

When Jeremy had come to school with the Squip for the first time, and their squips had synced, Jeremy had mentioned how his dad drank, just like Rich’s...

So why did Jeremy suddenly look guilt- oh.

”Squip told you to say that, huh?” Rich sounded slightly hurt, even though it was _incredibly_ selfish of him. Why did it matter if Jeremy had lied about an abusive father, when he’d saddled Jeremy with trauma and guilt of his own over what he himself had done with the Squip on.

”Yeah... but... my mom... she didn’t really drink but... she fucking hated me... hit me every now and then, it was mostly emotional... telling me I was a freak, a disappointment..” Rich could tell how much it was paining Jeremy to say all this. He knew he wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t this specific situation.

And his little bit of hurt faded, and the kinship Rich had thought they’d shared didn’t really disappear. There was understanding in Jeremy’s eyes... here was someone going through mostly the same shit, and still offering help...

”Wanna have lunch with Christine and Michael and I?” Jeremy offered.

”You know what? Sure.”

Jeremy smiled, and Rich would always remember that gentle, small smile, as stood and then helped Rich stand up from the cold floor, he’d remember the warmth in his hand and the soft look Jeremy gave him before they parted ways for class.

* * *

Rich needed to escape.

It was one in the morning, and his dad had finally passed out from all the alcohol. He had a black eye, bruises all over, his bottom lip totally busted, and he was afraid to sleep, but he was so goddamn exhausted.

His dad waited for him in the waking world, the Squip waited in his sleep, and he just wanted to be with someone, so that he wouldn’t go insane.

He climbed out his window and just walked.

Rich new Jeremy’s address, he’d given it to him awhile back, just in case he ever needed help. 

They’d been talking for two weeks, sharing squip trauma, parental trauma... trauma bonding, woo.

But never had Rich climbed into Jeremy’s bedroom at one thirty in the morning, bruised and bloody.

Jeremy wasn’t asleep, luckily for Rich. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against his bed, sitting up ramrod straight, and something small and metal shined against the moonlight.

And he knew what Jeremy was doing.

”Stop...” Rich whispered.

Jeremy jumped into the stratosphere, and Rich honestly couldn’t blame him. It was the middle of the night, and Rich had just casually popped in.

Rich knelt in front of him and silently pried the razor from his fingers. Jeremy looked down.

So he was dragged into the bathroom, where Rich found the first aid kit and patched Jeremy up as best he could.

”You shouldn’t be doing this... I should be helping you..” Jeremy protested, pitifully weak, sounding small and broken.

”It’s okay,” Rich said softly, bandaging up the three smooth cuts that Jeremy had carved.

When he was all patched up, Jeremy silently took the first aid kit from Rich, and took his turn to patch someone up. He searched for bruises with the eye of someone who knew where they were most likely to be, and got Rich an ice pack when everything that needed to be bandaged was bandaged as best as it could be.

”...What now?” Rich asked, sounding hoarse and quieter than he’d thought he was saying it.

”We could try and sleep... I guess...” Jeremy started picking at one of his fresh bandaids, and Rich placed his hand over Jeremy’s to make him stop.

Jeremy looked up at him, rocking a scared, sad small child look, just for a moment-

And then, came the loudest, most broken sobs Rich had ever heard in his entire goddamn existence. Every sob seemed more broken and powerful than the last, and they never relented, only growing in power.

Rich, after sitting there for a minute, caught off guard and unsure of what to do, gently wrapped his arms around Jeremy.

Jeremy only sobbed so much louder, clinging to him so damn tight now.

He cried for probably half an hour before his sobs finally slowed and formed sniffles, and Jeremy didn’t move his head from it’s spot, resting on Rich’s chest.

”Sorry..” he murmured, and Rich began rubbing his back. Jeremy shuddered and then melted at the touch.

Nothing more was said for a good ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and then, sleepy and exhausted, “Don’t wanna move...”

”I can put you in your be-“

”No!” Jeremy half shrieked, half gasped. “No no please don’t let go of me, _please_.”

”...Okay... do you want to be in your bed but I’ll keep holding you?”

Jeremy nodded against his head.

So Rich gently helped him up and assisted him in stumbling to his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind them as Jeremy went to his bed, curling up in a ball.

Rich stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do, until Jeremy said, “Fucking hold me... please, Rich.”

Rich sank into the bed next to him, laying down, gathering Jeremy up in his arms and pulling the blankets over him, and god if he didn’t want to just stay here forever.

Jeremy sniffled, and then for awhile was silent. Rich had figured he had fallen asleep, was almost asleep himself, when, “Thank you, Rich.”

”It’s nothing,” Rich replied softly.

Jeremy’s breathing steadied and evened out, and Rich soon followed.

And there were no more nightmares for either of them that night, just soft, incredibly restful sleep.

* * *

After that, Jeremy and Rich were definitely closer. Even though they didn’t really talk about that night much, they cuddled a few more times, and there was no judgment, just the opportunity to finally get some sleep.

Winter turned to early spring, and with the turn of the seasons, Rich’s dad got worse again. Understandable and unsurprising, as his wife’s death anniversary was in March, and Rich knew he blamed him for it, even if he’d fucking hated that woman, and he beat her so goddamn often.

Her name had been Mindy, her hair was like Rich’s, blonde, long and straight and simple, often pulled into a messy bun or braid, her gentle green eyes helping Rich with homework, those green eyes turning scared as she heard the front door open and she told Rich to go upstairs to his bedroom.

She was an artist, and she mainly painted. She had so many empty canvases that had never been filled by the time she died, but plenty had been filled, with bright, happy colour. Some were of things, there had once been a portrait of Rich before his dad had destroyed it, there had been still life paintings, of stuffed animals or half open backpacks stuffed to its limits with papers and books.

Mindy had made so many beautiful, beautiful paintings, and most of them were gone, destroyed by her husband after she walked in front of a blue 2003 Ford Fiesta.

As her sons looked on, helpless, screaming, and she didn’t even look back.

She gave up before she ever had a chance at real happiness, away from her husband.

And when Mindy had went to heaven, the widow she left behind turned his violence towards their youngest. He remembered, a few days after she’d died, when he’d found him crying and slammed his head into the wall repeatedly.

_Boys don’t cry, boy don’t cry._

He wanted so badly to escape the constant pain, the constant belittling, he just wanted to be safe and he would never be.

He was sixteen, turning seventeen in July. One more year with him. One more year until he could finally, finally escape. 

But still, the day before Mindy’s death anniversary, Rich found himself begging Jeremy to help him. 

“Please, please help me, Jeremy... he’s going to hurt me so bad tomorrow, just like he does every year and I don’t think I can handle it this time.”

”You can stay with me... you know, we could always file a restraining order and then maybe sue him, or try to get emancipated, my friend Thalia, she lives in Chicago, she did that to get away from her dad, who was just as bad as yours.”

”You need to be able to support yourself to get emancipated, I don’t have a job... I have about twenty dollars to my name. How would I even pay to file the restraining order?”

”I’ll help you. And don’t you dare even try to protest, Rich. I’m not going to let him do this to you anymore... I swear we’ll get you out of there.”

So that night, he and Jeremy pooled their money and went to the police, and somehow, _somehow_ , they got a restraining order filed, and the police promised to further investigate him.

Just like that.

After eight years of this... it’d been stopped, just fucking like that. Two hours and sixty dollars later, and he was safe.

”What do you say we go to Seven Eleven and get Slurpees to celebrate, Richie dearest?” Jeremy suggested. He was joking... but being called someone’s dearest gave Rich a certain feeling... he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly that feeling happened to be, though, which was understandably and incredibly frustrating.

”Midnight Slurpees? Hell fucking yes, dude,” Rich said, and so they piled into Jeremy’s car, or, well, really his dad’s car, and drove the three blocks to their local neighbourhood Seven Eleven.

They made a beeline for the Slurpee machine, both of them getting the blue raspberry one.

”Michael always gets cherry, but it’s entirely too sweet, and the lemonade flavour is always too sour, without fail, no matter what. Blue raspberry is goddamn perfection.

”You’re right and you should say it, Jeremy,” Rich said.

Jeremy paid for the Slurpees, despite Rich saying that Jeremy had pretty much just bought him freedom, so the least he could do was drop five bucks on slushies, but Jeremy insisted.

On the drive back to Jeremy’s house, Rich found himself staring at Jeremy as he drove. God, his face was perfect, a perfect jawline, was it creepy to really like that damn jawline? Or his sparkling blue eyes... or his soft face, or...

And that’s when it hit him, as if someone had attached a pallet of cinderblocks to the chain of a wrecking ball, and smacked him right in the face. Of course, if that’d happened for real, and hadn’t just been a metaphor, he’d be dead... but the point still stood.

He was in love with Jeremy Heere.

He knew he was bi, the revelation was the one and only good thing that’d come of pretending to be okay after Jeremy had first woken up in the hospital, but holy fuck.

Number one, how had he not figured this out sooner, number two, he was so, so goddamn fucked. Jeremy was very straight, even if the thing with Christine hadn’t worked out because she was a lesbian and decided to hook up with Brooke (good for her, she deserved Brooke, Rich knew from experience that she was goddamn _hot_ ). Still, Jeremy was still very very straight... and it’s not like Rich deserved him anyway.

He didn’t even deserve his friendship, after giving him a butt ton of trauma, but here he was, being completely and totally in love with Jeremy Heere.

Rich wasn’t gonna lie, he goddamn hated himself for this. Now the friendship would be ruined because Jeremy would undoubtedly eventually find out, and Rich would be alone and sad again, and now with nowhere to go, because Jeremy would definitely not let him stay in his house after finding out something like that.

His bright blue, artificially flavoured Slurpee was mostly melted in his cup before he ever took another sip, letting the cold, sweet liquid to run down his throat and bring him back to reality.

Rich Goranski was not going to love Jeremy. He was not, and that was the end of the discussion, for the rest of time.

Rather, he’d bury it all down deep inside his soul and forget about it.

Boys don’t cry.

* * *

His dad lost custody, and Rich stayed with Jeremy. Neither Jeremy nor his dad seemed to minc that he was there, and that was fine with Rich. He’d gotten attached to living in Jeremy’s room, because they didn’t have a guest room.

Even if it was an air mattress next to Jeremy’s bed, it was safe, warm, and his dad wasn’t downstairs, blackout drunk and wanting to hurt someone, to hit Rich until he passed out.

Plus, as a bonus, Jeremy cuddles became a more regular occurrence, and even if he was trying to forget about how much he fucking adored Jeremy, he sure wasn’t complaining. Whenever he held Jeremy, or Jeremy held him, the voices quieted and he could sleep without nightmares or insomnia. It was addicting, and Rich wanted to never leave Jeremy in the mornings when they woke up together.

Early spring faded into summer, and summer faded into July 17th, Rich’s seventeenth birthday. Jeremy’s birthday had been on the 14th of March, making Jeremy older than him. He’d always thought Jeremy was a year or two younger, so finding out he was actually older... it wasn’t so bad. He was a tiny bit less afraid of breaking him, even if he was only older by a couple months.

He and Jeremy went to see the newest Disney movie at the drive in, and they took Rich’s car, a red Ford pickup truck from the nineties - or was it from 2001? - which had once belonged to his dad, but since he had been sentenced to eight years in prison, Rich had gotten the car.

He realised, on the way there, that Jeremy was clutching his seatbelt so hard, his knuckles were greyish white, and his face... fear.

”Something wrong, Jeremy?” Rich asked. He was afraid Jeremy was having some sort of flashback... but no.

”Your driving scares the shit out of me, Rich,” Jeremy said, his voice shaking through a smile. “You’re so fucking reckless, goddamn.”

”I am not!” Rich retorted indignantly, but paid a little more attention to his driving. Okay, so maybe he should’ve taken that turn a little slower, and okay, maybe he was going a little over the speed limit... but it’s not like he was going to admit that and let Jeremy win.

”Bitch, I’m driving perfectly safely,” he said. Jeremy scoffed.

”I know your games, you’re just saying that to win.”

”There’s nothing to win!”

”Oh, is that so? Hmm... nothing at aaaaalll to win?” Jeremy wiggled his eyebrows, and Rich probably gaped for half a second... because what on Earth was Jeremy talking about?

Did he... nope. Rich banished that thought to northern Siberia, because he did not want to deal with that right now.

He was trying to drive, it was most certainly not the time to have a gay overthinking crisis.

Still, Rich was 98.80865689900097 percent sure that Jeremy was flirting with him, when Jeremy flirted while they set up their chairs on the bed of the truck, and the blankets, and kept the outside snacks hidden under the backseat, because they weren’t really supposed to have that.

Jeremy was definitely maybe flirting when they got popcorn and sodas, the only things they hadn’t bought from Walmart before driving down to the drive in, and he was definitely maybe flirting when he purposefully brushed hands with Rich in the popcorn bowl, and okay, that was just unfair and this needed to come to a stop, right now.

”Oh my god, Jeremy, either kiss me or stop being stop a goddamn tease,” Rich blurted out, and then proceeded to turn bright red. 

Jeremy gaped for a moment, and Rich’s heart and stomach fell straight into his feet.

And then Jeremy was kissing him, kissing him with everything he had, and Rich sank into it, and nothing else in the world held any meaning anymore.

”To cut to the chase, Rich-“ Jeremy began, when they’d come up for air, “I like you, you like me, let’s make this officially a date and say we’re boyfriends?” The kiss had made Jeremy unusually bold and plain spoken, and Rich loved it.

”I agree, I agree one hundred percent. Now kiss me again, Heere.”

He did, and again Rich melted.

Goddamn, he was Rich Goranski and he loved Jeremy Heere with every last bit of him.

* * *

It was sunrise, and Jeremy and Rich were in the bed of the truck again, now in Jeremy’s driveway.

When they’d gotten home from watching the meteor shower, they’d gone inside, gotten sodas, and watched the stars from right there. The view wasn’t as good from here, there were some annoying trees that blocked their view, but they were snuggled under a blanket together, watching the stars, and that was enough.

As the first bits of sunlight broke through the horizon, it hit Rich like a pallet of cinderblocks had been attached to a cinderblock and swung at him.

Everything was actually _okay_. Nothing hurt, nothing had hurt for awhile, and everything was happy and free and safe.

He burst into tears.

”Rich, are you okay?” Jeremy asked, jumping to begin comforting him.

”Oh my god, oh my fuck, Jeremy, I just... I love you so much... nothing’s hurting and we’re free, we’re free and happy and together and okay... I love you, I love you, I love you... and I don’t even feel like shit for crying.”

”Boys can cry.”

”Boys can cry,” Rich said, crying all the harder. God, that felt like coming home, smelling food in the oven, being greeted by nothing but warmth and safety and love, as he buried his face in Jeremy’s shoulder and sobbed.

”Oh, oh, Richie,” Jeremy said softly, gently, kindly. “Look at the sunrise, it’s so so pretty.”

He looked and... and Jeremy was right. The colours were bright, yellow orange pink blue purple against the dark sky, some few stars still shining.

But you know what was even prettier, even prettier than anything else in the entire goddamn world?

Jeremy was far more pretty than this sunrise could ever possibly be.

He kissed him, a salty kiss mixed with his overjoyed tears, and everything was okay.


End file.
